


Planting the Backfoot

by ShinSolo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1979 Championship Cup, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Canada, Concussions, Goalies Do it Best, Guelph Gryphons, Hockey, John Lupin is an Asshat, M/M, Mild Werewolf Violence, Occasional Explicit Language, Several References to Hockey Injuries, Slash, University Hockey, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:02:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinSolo/pseuds/ShinSolo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus never really meant to eavesdrop, but as the only werewolf at University of Guelph, it wasn’t always something that could be helped.  And even though he usually at least tried to tune it out, some people were harder to ignore.  The smart, attractive captain of the Gyrphon's ice hockey team, Sirius Black, was one of those people.</p><p>Or that time when Remus joined the university hockey team to impress a boy, got his ass handed to him by a girl, and learned a lot about, well, everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Planting the Backfoot

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Scars Give It All Away](https://archiveofourown.org/works/836848) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



> Planting the Backfoot: A defensive move in ice hockey where the goal tender pushes off with one foot, yet stays stationary, forcing him to open up, and ultimately end up on his rear end.

“Two broken hands, three concussions, one shattered tibia, one sprained wrist, a displaced knee, and four players out with cracked or bruised ribs…”

Remus never really meant to eavesdrop, but as the only werewolf at University of Guelph, it wasn’t always something that could be helped.  And even though he usually at least tried to tune it out, some people were harder to ignore.  Sirius Black was one of those people. 

To everyone else Remus knew, Sirius was someone worthy of admiration.  He was attractive, smart, dressed like he was made of money and the captain of the Guelph Gryphons’ ice hockey team.  But he was also loud, with a voice that seemed to carry even farther off the ice than it did during game play, and somehow always managed to end up everywhere Remus went in search of quiet.  When Remus sought out the solitude of his own dorm room, Sirius’ voice was guaranteed to penetrate the very walls of the building.  If he fled to the library, Sirius was bound to show up, talking in whispers that were sure to destroy every bit of concentration Remus could muster.  And in class, Sirius was infamous for asking questions and sparking class discussions after class discussion.  To Remus, it seemed everything Sirius did was designed to be as loud as possible, even when he wasn’t talking.  Even the way he turned the pages of his book and bore down a bit too hard on his pen when he wrote, were enough to overwhelm Remus’ senses.

 “And that’s just this season, James!”  Sirius exclaimed, his voice rising over the sound of six dozen or so other students talking among themselves, loud enough that Remus actually flinched even though he was sitting on the opposite side of the auditorium.  “At this rate, come playoffs, we’re not even going to have enough players left to form one line.”

“It’s not that bad,” his friend replied as the two of them began pushing their way past the other students.  Class was scheduled to start any second, and as normal, they were the last ones to enter the classroom.  “We’ll just hold some midseason tryouts.  See who we can find.  Even if they’re bloody awful at hockey, as long as they can skate.  Just to hold us off until we can get some people healed up and cleared to play?  It’s not like we’re gonna be anywhere close to winning the Cup this year anyway.”

The professor took her place at the front of the auditorium and Remus opened his Anatomy and Physiology text.  If he was lucky, Sirius would sit as far from him as possible or would decide he didn’t want to stay for class after all.   Although he was not a bad student, Remus found the many inner workings of the human body too abstract, too far removed from the way his own body seemed to function.  He had to make himself interested in the material, had to pay extra close attention to everything the professor explained.  It was one class Remus where couldn’t afford to be distracted.

However, with most of the other students already seated, the number of open seats were limited, especially two open seats next to one another, and like most things in his life, Remus found he was not going to have it his way.  James pushed past him first and sat in the corner against the wall, leaving an empty seat for Sirius right next to Remus.

“Maybe,” Sirius said, seeming to ignore the fact that class had technically already started and sighing almost as loud as he spoke.  “But Jamie, everyone that knows anything about hockey is already on the team!  Where are we going to find anyone who even knows how to stay vertical on skates?”

James opened his mouth to answer, but Remus beat him to it, his voice reaching a volume so uncharacteristic of him that he drew not only Sirius’ attention, but the attention of just about everyone sitting around them as well.

“I can play.  And if you can shut up long enough for the teacher to teach, I’ll try out for your stupid team.  Okay?”

A moment of dead silence passed over the room and then Sirius grinned wider than Remus had ever seen him grin before.

“Well then,” Sirius said, his voice low and eyes fixed intently upon Remus as if sizing him up.  “I guess we’re having tryouts after all.”

Halfway through the lecture he slipped a note on top of Remus’ desk, telling him tryouts would be Friday at three, but miraculously, Sirius didn’t say a single word the rest of the class.

 

 

The main downfall of opening his mouth before he thought, was that Remus knew almost next to nothing about hockey.  When he was younger, before he’d been bitten, his father had been a fan.  He remembered watching the Winter Olympics when they were hosted by Austria and how patience his father had been as he tried to explain the rules of the game.  But Remus hadn’t even been four-years-old at the time, and he couldn’t really remember anything besides how upset his father had been when the bronze medal was taken away from Canada.  After the werewolf attacked, bit him, and killed his mother, his father’s and his world had been changed too much for sports to really matter.  After that, Remus considered it a good day if he even got to see father more than an hour a night between when he came home from work from his second, sometimes third, job and Remus was sent to bed.

Remus had only even seen the Gryphs play twice, and both times it was because someone else had wanted to go, not because he had actually been interested in watching the game.  He couldn’t even remember if they had won or lost the first game he had attended.  In fact, all he remembered about it at all was watching a particular loud rookie forward, now captain, take the ice and the look of disappointment on his date’s face when he asked him if he knew the player’s name.  After that night, he’d never been able to tune Sirius out again, despite how much he often wished he could.

With no other options left, Remus found himself in the library surrounded by every book he could find about the game of hockey and hoped his supernatural abilities would finally prove useful for something besides eavesdropping and opening extra tight lids on pickle jars.  And even though he knew Friday at three would probably be one of the most embarrassing moments of his life, Remus knew he wouldn’t be able to get out of it, especially not now that Sirius Black had actually finally acknowledged his existence.

 

 

Despite spending more hours than Remus cared to count in the library, and then several more secretly teaching himself how to ice skate on a frozen over lake in the middle of nowhere on fifth hand skates, Remus felt no more ready for the tryouts than he had when he’d first realized what exactly he had agreed to do.  He skipped every class, nearly stopped sleeping, and put every ounce of his hyperawareness into simultaneously avoiding Sirius and trying to listen in on his every conversation for hints about who else might be trying out for the team.  But Sirius didn’t seem to be talking nearly as loud or as often as he used to.

When Friday at three finally came around, Remus made sure he was the last one to creep into the locker-room.  He stuck to the room’s perimeter, eyes taking in every contender and ears open to absorb every word of every conversation all at once.  One student Remus had never seen before was talking about how he was a defenseman for his last college team before he’d transferred to Guelph. Another guy had played hockey in secondary school and helped his team win a local championship.  A couple had never played competitively, but had met up with some friends every winter to play for kicks.  The rest seemed to have auditioned for the team previously, but never actually made the cut.  Everyone had more experience, then again it wasn’t really all that hard to have more experience than Remus.

He was so focused on everyone else that he didn’t even notice Sirius standing next to him until he spoke.

“What position did you say you played?”

Remus jumped and quickly turned to face Sirius, his untrimmed bangs falling into his eyes as he did so.  It wasn’t often someone was able to sneak up on him.  In fact, Remus actually didn’t know of a single person being able to move so close to him without him noticing in as long as he could remember.  But Sirius didn’t seem to notice he’d done anything unusual and his eyes appeared cold and calculating.

“I don’t think I ever said,” Remus said after a moment.  Under that gaze, he felt smaller and more vulnerable than he had in years, and he realized with a start that he was no longer looking at the carefree and easy going Sirius he knew from around campus.  Instead he was seeing Sirius being, well, serious.  He was seeing Sirius the way that only his team saw him before a game or after a loss, when he was telling them to be better, to play harder.  Remus swallowed, squared his shoulders, and once again said the first thing that came to his mind.  “I played goal tender.  I mean I was – am – a goalie.”

Sirius narrowed his eyes, cracked his knuckles of one hand against his forearm of the opposite arm, and although he didn’t smile, he visibly softened.

“Goalie”—He hesitated, then nodded.—“Good, we could use a goalie actually.  Do you have your own gear?  If not you should ask Wellsey.  He might gripe, but he’s out on injury reserve anyway.  Not like he’ll be needing them with a trochanteric bursitis or hip pointer or whatever it is he claims he has.”

Remus wasn’t really sure what either of those things were, but knew they didn’t sound good.  At least he was pretty sure he would heal fast enough that he would never have to worry about anything like that happening to him.

Sirius was gone before Remus had time to think of anything else to say, his attention now focused on another Gryphs’ hopeful.

Finding Wellsey, whose real name turned out to be Cresswell, turned out to be a walk in the park compared to the task of figuring out how to put on the gear that was lent to him.  If Remus was the last one dressed and ready, he hoped it appeared to anyone who might be watching that he was the last one dressed because he had to readjust all of the straps on his borrowed pads, and not because he actually had to wait to see how someone else put them on before he could even attempt doing so himself.

Watching Sirius and the rest of the team begin to sort through the players, deciding who should be asked to run drills and who should be sent home immediately for one reason or another, Remus was glad he had said he played goalie.  In fact, maybe being in the goal was the best place for him after all.  For one, he wouldn’t have to skate very much, which was good because he wasn’t a very good skater.   He was also quick, and his reflexes and hand to eye coordination were exceptional – lycanthropy sort of ensured they would be.  And even though most of his gifts might be hard to hide, being able to block pucks better than the average college student might just be mistaken as extreme talent instead of outing him as a freak of nature.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt a bit better about what he was about to get himself into, and when Sirius blew his whistle and called his name, Remus took a deep breath, pushed off from the boards, and slowly glided out toward the goal net.

“You ready, Lupin?”  James called out to him from center ice, and Remus barely had time to nod before James let the first puck fly with a seemingly effortless flick of his wrist.

Time slowed down as Remus shifted from startled, to terrified, to a semi sort of focused as he remembered he was actually supposed to stop the puck with his body.  And by the time he actually raised his gloved hand up, it was almost too late.  He didn’t catch the puck like he intended, but the shot was still deflected and thankfully did not end up in the net.

When Remus looked back up, James was staring at him as if surprised.  Sirius, on the other hand, appeared completely blank and unreadable.  He skated out toward center ice, wound his stick up to the height of his shoulders, and sent a slapshot Remus’ way with enough force that the sound of his stick making contact with the puck echoed throughout the arena.  This time Remus hardly hesitated.  He pushed off with his right foot and lined himself up with the shot just in time for the puck to collide with his chest.  The impact nearly took his breath away and knocked him on his ass in the process, but it was still a save.  He made it back to his feet just in time to stop a shot from James with his glove hand and then deflect another yet another shot from Sirius away with the blade of his opposite skate.

Everyone went quiet, and for a moment Remus was terrified that he had screwed up.  He pushed his mask up to the top of his head and nervously looked toward Sirius just in time to see a wide grin form across his lips.  Then everyone watching seemed to start talking at once.

“Damn, Lupin!  How the hell–“

“Did you see what he just—“

“Wow, just wow, I mean—“

Sirius skated out toward the goal and Remus hesitantly pushed off of the net, making an attempt to meet him halfway.  He was a bit unsteady as he came to a stop, but Sirius reached out, steading him with a hand to his shoulder.

“That was absolutely amazing.  I can’t believe you stopped every shot like that,” Sirius began, his words leaving his lips at a feverish pace and the grin never leaving his lips. “I didn’t even know you could play until the other day and then I really didn’t even think you really could.  I thought you’d just played a bit of shinny or maybe were even just a duster at best.  Never mind what I thought.  The point is you can play, you can play well.  I’ve never even seen the technique you used when you planted the backfoot to keep the biscuit from between the pipes, then kept it out of the five hole, and yeah.  What I’m trying to say is, if you want to play, you’re in.  You’re in.”

Remus didn’t understand half of what he said, but he nodded anyway and his grin was almost as wide as Sirius’.

 

 

The next morning Remus woke extra early, for a Saturday at least, to the sound of Lily watching Doctor Who reruns on his TV.  He groaned in protest and pulled the blanket over his head, but just knowing she was there meant sleep was more than likely canceled for the day.  To her credit, Lily didn’t even acknowledge him or the fact that she was in his room, watching his TV, at half past eight in the morning.  It was a quarter past nine before Remus was awake enough to brush his teeth and attempt making conversation.

“How was your night?”  Lily asked, not even looking up from what Remus was pretty sure was _The Pirate Planet: Part one_.

He shrugged and sat down on floor near her chair, his blanket wrapped around him like a poor man’s dressing gown.  “Fine?”

“You liar!” Lily exclaimed at the same time her heel kicked into his side.  “James already told me all about the Grpyhons’ ‘New Star Player.’ Apparently you’re quite the talk of the town.  Not only did you stop an eighty mile per hour slapshot without flinching, but you also managed to drink Sirius under the table at the welcoming party.”

“Oh, come on, Lily.  It wasn’t that mu—“

“Oh, no you don’t, Remus,” she said, actually looking at him for the first time.  “You know I couldn’t care less about how much whiskey you put away.  You couldn’t get drunk if your life depended on it.  But what I do care about is the fact that as of the last time I saw you, you couldn’t list off a single fact about hockey, not one, and now you’re suddenly – according to Sirius at least – you’re the next Ken Dryden?”

Remus didn’t even pretend he knew who Ken Dryden was.

“Well yeah, but they don’t know that.  For all they know I’ve always been into hockey,” he said, not even trying to win an argument against his friend of almost ten years.  “It’s not like anyone is going to care enough to pull my records and see whether or not I actually played as a kid or anything.”

“No, no one’s going to do that, but you,”—Lilly sighed and closed her eyes a moment longer than a blink, as if forcing herself to be patience with him.—“Remus, you were too good.  You’ve made people talk about you, which means people are going to be watching you, watching you very closely.  What if someone finds out?  What then?  What if someone notices that you get a bit more predatory than most when it’s your time of the month or someone pisses you off?”

To be honest, he hadn’t actually thought about that.  He’d only thought about doing the best he could and trying to impress Sirius.  He hadn’t thought about what making the team would actually mean for him, that it would make people watch him like he watched Sirius.

It wasn’t that Remus was afraid of a single person finding out.  He’d told people in the past to a wide array of mixed reactions.  And although no one had ever taken it quite as well as he’d hoped, they had kept their mouths closed, at least to the point in which he had never had an angry mob of villagers with pitchforks come and attack his house in the middle of the night.  Then again, he assumed most people wouldn’t believe someone if they told anyway.  But confiding in one person, and having numerous people simultaneously figuring it out on their own were two very different things.

“Have you even thought about it?”  Lily asked again after a moment, her voice softer and less condescending as if she could sense his disquiet.  “You haven’t, have you?”

He sighed and turned his attention to the threads of his blanket.

“Well, I won’t be playing every single game, not just starting off.  I can always tell the team I have an astronomy class to get out of playing too close to the full moon.  And I mean, it really does take a lot to make me angry enough for anything to seem off—“

“True, it does usually take a lot to make you angry, but Remus, hockey is a sport designed to make people angry.  It’s a sport designed for people to get into fights and insult one another from behind their masks.  That’s what people go to hockey games to watch.”—She crossed the room and turned the TV off before sitting in the floor next to Remus.—“But it’s not even just that.  What if you take a puck to the head or a punch to the face and then don’t get hurt?  Or you do get hurt, but by the end of the game you don’t even have a bruise on you anymore?  For someone who has made it his top priority to never be found out by anyone, this doesn’t seem like the best idea.”

“I didn’t—I didn’t think about it like that,” he said, his voice barely even audible to her.  “I didn’t think about it.  For once in my life I didn’t think about being a werewolf, I just thought about doing something to try and get him to notice me, to stand out to him.  I didn’t think about what would happen when someone finds out I’m not even human and tells him.”

“Oh, Remus,” Lily said, pulling him into a hug.  “Sirius is—well, Sirius, so a bit pigheaded at best really, but he’s not a bad guy.  Not everyone’s a bad person.  Not everyone is going to hate you for it.  I don’t hate you for it.  He might not care, about any of this.  He honestly might just be glad to have you on the team, and well, maybe even as his friend.”

Remus shook his head and pulled away from his friend.  He’d grown up listening to his father warn him over and over again that people would never really understand, that his condition had to be kept a secret at all costs.  Even though Lily was fine with everything now, she hadn’t always been so accepting.  In fact, the only reason she even knew him was because the same werewolf that killed his mother also killed her uncle.  When she learned about the werewolf and then learned he had passed the bite onto someone else, someone who rumor had it would be his protégé, she had gone looking for Remus hoping to avenge her uncle’s death.  Remus had learned pretty quickly that the only thing worse than a woman scorned was an irate, 8-year-old, Lily Evans.  It was years before he could actually call her his best friend.

He didn’t want to risk things not working out the same way with Sirius, especially not when it was already hard enough knowing that he was probably only going to ever have Sirius as a friend, if he was to even have him at all.

“Promise me,” he said, his voice orotund and matter-of-fact.  “Promise me you will never tell him.”

And even though she had pity clearly etched on her face, Lily promise all the same.

 

 

The next few weeks went by all too quickly.  Practice started at seven a.m. four days a week, with optional skate (that wasn’t exactly optional for Remus since he actually needed the extra practice) most afternoons there wasn’t a game.  And although he was still ignorant of most of the slang terms thrown around on and off the ice, Remus was slowly picking up on the basic rules of the game.  He could now identify when a play went off sides, understood what was meant when play was stopped for an icing.  He was also slowly beginning to understand exactly how much the game of hockey really did mean to Sirius. 

Sirius was always the first one to practice and usually the last one to leave.  He showed up for every optional skate.  He even help practice for the coach on days when coach didn’t even think the team needed the extra practice.  But Remus’ favorite over-the-top-captain moments with Sirius were the times he would show up unannounced at his door, sometimes knocking and other times just walking right on in like they had been teammates for years.  At first, the impromptu visits only happened when he had a question, wanted to know what Remus thought he needed to work on, wanted to rant because James was out with Lily and there was a forward playing for the Alberta Golden Bears with stats higher than his and he didn’t see how that could be possible.  Then, as time went by, Sirius would just follow him back to his room after practice, or show up early before an optional skate to make sure Remus was planning on showing up.

Remus always assumed that making a new friend would be slow and painful, like it was between Lily and him, but adjusting to life with Sirius was easy and natural.  If Remus hadn’t been so hung up over Sirius for so long, it would have been easy to forget that things hadn’t always been this way between them.

Granted, Sirius was still loud.  He still talked too much in the library, and laughed so loud he woke Remus up at night even when though his room was two floors above Remus’.  He still ran his mouth during class, only now he talked to Remus and James.  But despite the slow decline of his grades, Remus didn’t seem to mind as much anymore.  He was starting to understand that being loud wasn’t something Sirius did on purpose, it was just part of who Sirius was.

Slowly, with Remus in the net, the Gryphons actually started to win some games and slowly began to move up from almost last place in the league.  And after a few games of overachieving, Remus also began listening to some of Lily’s advice and started ‘accidentally’ letting a puck or so past him, but only when the Gryphons were already winning and it wouldn’t really affect the outcome of the game.  If he wasn’t perfect, less people would suspect – or so he hoped.

But then, like Remus knew was eventually bound to happen, the upcoming game against the Toronto Varsity Blues was rescheduled, landing it on the very night of the next full moon.  Remus had no choice but to tell Sirius he couldn’t play, that the still semi-injured Cresswell would have to be in the net.

“What do you mean you can’t play?”  Sirius asked, pausing in the process of unlacing his skates after practice.  Remus had been waiting to tell him for days, knowing that no matter how he worded it or what excuse he came up with, Sirius was not going to take it well.  “The Blues are one of the best teams right now, do you even know what it would mean if we beat them? The whole league would have to recognize that we are actually competition now!  You can’t just not play.”

“I told you, Siri.  My dad’s scheduled for surgery that evening and I have to be there to drive him home after.  I can’t just leave my dad at the hospital,” Remus said, hoping Sirius wouldn’t notice he was lying through his teeth.  “I’ve got to pick him up from Etobicoke General and drive him all the way out to Barrie.  There’s no way I’m going to make it back before the game.  You’re going to have to use someone else.”

“Your father lives in Barrie?  No one lives in Barrie—“

“He really does live in Barrie, Sirius.”

“Okay, whatever, he lives in Barrie.  But that doesn’t change the fact that without you we don’t have a goalie.  What am I supposed to do? Use Wellsey?  He limps off the ice.  Putting him in goal is going to be a complete disaster!”  Sirius slammed his locker shut a bit too hard and closed his eyes tight for a few seconds before taking a deep breath.  “Okay.  You’re right.  Your father comes first and I’m sorry he’s sick or whatever is wrong with him.  What is wrong with him?”

Remus obviously didn’t think this all the way through, but if existence with Sirius taught him anything, it was that pulling things off the top of his head didn’t always go quite as horrible as they did when he did it around other people.

“Hernias.  He has to have hernia surgery,” he swallowed, spent a bit more time inspecting the tape on his goalie stick than necessary.

“Your dad scheduled hernia surgery the night of our biggest game of the season?”  Sirius asked, his nose scrunched up in disbelief.

“He didn’t know it was the night of the game!”

Sirius sighed and heavily sat down on the bench next to Remus.   It was amazing to Remus that none of the other people in the locker-room were even paying attention to their conversation, as if they were just used to their captain randomly arguing with various players.

“Okay,” Sirius finally said after a long moment of silence.  “We’ll put Wellsey in the net.  You take care of your dad.  Just do me a favor, okay?”

“Anything,” Remus said a bit too quickly, his eyes fixed on Sirius’.

“Don’t miss again.”

Remus had no other choice but to agree.

 

 

“How’d it go?”  Lily asked.  It was the day after the Gryphons had played the Varsity Blues and Remus hadn’t been back on the Guelph campus more than a few hours.  And even though he had managed to drag himself to the cafeteria, he still wished he was back in bed for at least another twelve or so hours.

“I don’t know,” he said, pushing his food around on his plate and avoiding eye contact.  The cafeteria had called what he ordered ‘home-made pasta with cheese’ but he was pretty sure it was just Kraft Dinner with imitation bacon bits added in for flair.  “You were at the game, not me.  How am I supposed to know who won?”

Lily smacked him in the back of the head.

“You’ve been spending too much time around Sirius.  I don’t care about the stupid hockey game.  I’m asking you about your trip up the Grand River.”

“Oh, that.  It was a trip?”  Remus said, glancing around as if expecting everyone to be listening in, but no one was paying them a bit of attention.

Ever since he had started at University of Guelph, Remus had been heading up north to the Belwood Lake Conservation Area for his transformations.  It probably wasn’t the best place, but since he no longer lived with his father in Barrie, it was closer than the Minesing Wetlands where he had transformed as a child.  At least Belwood had a small island in the middle and closed down at night, meaning that since his wolf self couldn’t swim for some reason, it put about 7.5 miles of lake between him and any other human being that might be in the area.

“You know I only ask because I care,” Lily said.  She smiled and ruffled his hair, stealing a sip from his untouched pop in the process. “Oh, and also, don’t look now but we’ve got incoming.”

Remus looked up, his eyes instantly locking on where Sirius stood with James across the room.  And even though Sirius hadn’t located him yet, he could tell he was looking for him.  He partially hoped they wouldn’t be found, but then Lily was standing up and waving them over.  A grin spread across James’ face when he saw them and started making his way over, but Sirius wasn’t smiling.

“Hey—“

“We lost.  We lost bad.  Like 6-0 bad.  And to be honest, the Blues probably only stopped scoring on us because they didn’t have to anymore, not because after they lit the lamps six times Wellsey decided to stop being a sieve“—Sirius stopped mid-sentence when he finally looked at Remus—“Damn, Remus.  You look like hell.  Your dad didn’t like, die or something, did he?  I’d feel really bad if he died.  I mean, I don’t know him, but I know you and that would just, y’know, suck and stuff.”

“What does my da—“

“No, his dad didn’t die, Sirius,” Lily interrupted, probably saving Remus from making a fool of himself in front of everyone.  “Remus was just telling me how well his surgery went, weren’t you, Remus?”

“Yeah, oh that, yeah, it went well.  He’s going to be okay after all,” Remus recovered, kicking himself mentally for forgetting his own lies.  Most of the surface wounds had already healed, he was still sore and exhausted, not to mention the still open marks on his ankle where he’d apparently tried to bite into his own leg.  He should have realized Sirius of all people would notice when something wasn’t right.  “I was just up most of the night with him.  That’s all.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, very sure,” Remus said, shifting a bit uncomfortably in his seat before changing the subject.  “So Cresswell failing explains their six goals, but what happened with you? Don’t tell me you failed too and couldn’t even land a single shot in the back of the net.”

Sirius’ eyes darkened and his fists clenched on the table top. 

“Oh let me tell you.  That wasn’t my fault at all!  Do you have any idea how hard it is to get in a shot when your own line can’t even play the—“

Remus was pretty sure Sirius didn’t quite believe him, but with the conversation back on the game, it wasn’t mentioned again.

 

 

With Remus’ return, the Gryphs were back on another winning streak, and any suspicions that Sirius might have had were soon forgotten in the chaos that came with the Gryphs being in playoff contingency for the first time since they lost in the semi-finals in the ’77.  Everything was going good.  Remus had even managed to save up enough money from his part time job to buy his own set of gear.  It was third hand, but still his own and he was grateful to not have to borrow Cresswell’s pads anymore.

They were scheduled to play the Saint Mary’s Huskies when Remus’ father called and asked if he could come see the game.  It wasn’t that it was unusual for Remus to talk to his father, it was just unusual for his father to talk to him about anything even vaguely connected to any ability he might have in connection with his lycanthropy.  Remus was nervous about consenting, but was also glad his father seemed to be showing an interest in him, an interest in something he seemed to actually be good at.  In the end he ended up playing the good son card and asked the box-office to hold a ticket on will call for his father.  Maybe it would be a chance for Remus to finally show his father that he could live a normal life and could do normal activities without having to be the loner werewolf he’d been raised to believe he had to be.

As the game approached, Remus practiced extra hard.  Sirius had warned him that the Huskies had a tendency to trash talk, had a tendency to pick fights on the ice.  Remus wanted to make sure he had no reason to draw insult to himself.  He also knew that although the Huskies had never won the University Cup, they had been the runners up for the Cup more years than any other team in the league.  He wanted to be as perfect as he could be.

The team made a few more lineup changes, added a few new faces.  One of the new players was a defenseman named Snape that Remus had seen around campus a few times.  He was quiet, somewhat small for a hockey player, and had a tendency to linger in the locker-room.  Remus couldn’t be certain, but he was pretty good at picking up on a fellow eavesdropper when he saw one.  Not that it really mattered, there wasn’t much discussed in the locker-room or on the ice that Remus was too worried about anyone finding out about.  At least the guy could play.

 Sirius woke Remus up at the crack of dawn the day of the game with a pair of skates thrown over his shoulder.  He pulled Remus out of bed, shoved him in the direction of the showers, and told him he had fifteen minutes to be ready to hit the ice.

Although Remus had been playing with Sirius for almost two months at this point, it was rare to be on the ice with just Sirius.  They ran drills, played a few games of keep away that Sirius unsurprisingly always won, and Sirius even tried and failed at teaching him how to do a slapshot.  Almost two hours and three broken sticks later the two of them collapsed on the ice in laughter.  They laid there, side by side staring up at the rafters of the arena until the ice soaked through the backs of their jerseys and Sirius stated he had to go to Physics.

After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Remus bid Sirius a good day and made his way to his own first class of the day.  He wasn’t expecting James to pull him aside as he was about to walk into the classroom.

“Hey, got a minute?” James asked.  He looked nervous and uneasily shifted back and forth from one foot to another.  Remus checked the time and nodded, allowing James to guide him to an empty classroom across the hall.

“What’s up?”  He asked as soon as the door was closed behind them.

“Lily told me you had a bit of a temper problem,” James began.  He bit his bottom lip and leaned against one of the desks.  Remus was almost certain that was the entire conversation before he began to talk again.  “And I don’t really see it.  I mean, I’ve never seen you get upset over anything. At least not since that first day when you told Sirius off for talking in class.  But still, Lily doesn’t usually lie so I just wanted to make sure you were okay for the game tonight.  The Huskies suck.  They’re number one in the league when it comes to chirps.  And we’re doing so good so far.  We don’t need to take any extra minutes in the sin bin because someone couldn’t handle it.  That’s all I have to say.”

There were many conversations Remus had been prepared to have when James led him into that room, but that was definitely not one of them.  For a while he just stood there, blinking, not sure what he was supposed to say in response to any of that.  If Lily had told James he had an anger problem, she hadn’t meant that Remus couldn’t take an insult and liked to run his mouth.  That was for sure.

“Uhm, I’m sure she meant well, but I don’t see myself having any problems with them? I mean, I should be fine,” he shrugged and looked back at his watch.  Even being in Psychology was a more desirable place than in that classroom having a conversation that could get too personal all too fast.  “Have you talked to Sirius about this?”

James shrugged.

“No, I haven’t.  Not because he’s a bad captain or wouldn’t care, but because he’s weird with you.  He would probably tell me my girlfriend’s lost her mind and that you’re the best player he’s got next to himself and that I’m worried about nothing,”  James ran the fingers of one hand through his unruly hair and rubbed his face. 

“How’s he weird with me?”  Remus asked.  He could almost smell how uncomfortable James was having this conversation and nothing about the conversation seemed to warrant that.

“Nevermind it, Remus.  He just is.  Maybe he’s that way with everyone?”  James shoved his hands in his pockets and stood up straighter.  “Just forget I said anything.  Okay?  And y’know, watch yourself on the ice tonight.  I’m gonna be late.  Gotta go, but see you later!”

James ran out of the classroom without another word, leaving Remus standing there wondering what the hell had just happened and feeling like he needed to have a serious talk with Lily after the game.

 

 

They hadn’t been kidding when they said the Huskies were great at starting fights.  By ten minutes into the 2nd period, the Gryphons had spent more time on the penalty kill than not, and even Remus was beginning to feel exhausted from all the saves he’d had to make.  His shoulder ached from an ill blocked slapshot that had been launched his way from not even ten feet from the net, and sweat collected under his facemask before running into his eyes.

They were up by one when Sirius took a bad check from behind and his head caught the glass hard on the fall down.  His helmet fell off on impact and he laid on the ice unmoving for a moment before James made it to him.  Remus was the next person to get there, and thankfully Sirius was already waking up a bit at that point.  A slight trickle of blood ran down the side of his face from his hairline.

“Sirius?  Can you hear me buddy?”  James was saying.  He’d pulled his gloves off and had a bare hand pressed to the side of Sirius’ face.  Sirius looked pissed off, but alive.

“Yeah, yeah.  I can hear you.  Who the hell even hit me? I was retrieving the puck and then BAM!”  Sirius tried to sit up, but only managed to get up enough to lean against the boards.

Remus strained his ears, picked through various strands of conversation on the Huskie’s bench, but couldn’t pinpoint a single person claiming responsibility for the hit.  He cursed under his breath and looked around the ice.  Everyone was watching them with concerned looks except for one player standing near his now empty goal net smiling to himself as he tapped the end of his stick against the boards in a slow rhythm. 

Remus felt his blood boiling and pushed off without thinking, leaving Sirius in the care of the medics that had just arrived.  He was halfway across the ice to the player when he turned and looked up, locking eyes with Remus.  Remus stopped in his tracks, sending up a spray of snow in the process.  He knew those eyes, not personally, but he knew them all the same.  There was another wolf on the ice, and that wolf had just hurt Sirius.

“Can you hear me?” Remus whispered, never once breaking the gaze.  The wolf smirked, then nodded.  “Why?”

“Why not?” He didn’t even bother whispering, just called his words out as loud as he could across the ice.

Without even thinking about what he was doing, Remus dropped his gloves on the ice and charged.  It was exactly what the wolf expected though, and he grabbed onto Remus’ jersey before Remus could even throw a punch and shoved him against the glass.  Remus struggled to push back, but the other guy was stronger, older, maybe even an alpha.  All his years spent wondering what another werewolf would be like, had never prepared him for this.  A whistle blew as soon as a fist collided with the side of Remus’ face, and the taste of blood caused his teeth to begin to elongate, his nails to become just a bit sharper than normal.  He pushed back as hard as he could, grabbing ahold of the front of the guy’s jersey for balance, and was thankful when he felt his fist collide hard into the bottom of the jaw.  If he had been human, the punch would have been a knockout. He stumbled backward, released his hold on Remus, and bared his teeth.  Remus lunged forward, ready to land another punch, when someone grabbed the back of his jersey, holding him back.  James.  Remus could smell him without even looking back.  Somewhere in the crowd, he could hear his father screaming his name, could hear Lily behind the glass trying to talk him down.

Without knowing what else to do, Remus pushed away from James and headed to the bench, fled to tunnel that led back toward the locker-room.  He was still seeing red and his nails, now more like claws, pierced the skin of his palms as he clenched his fists. 

Lily was the first one to get to him.  Her hands held his face and he could see her lips moving even though his senses were so heightened the screaming of the crowd made everything far too loud to hear her words.

She half pulled, half pushed, him into the showers, turned the water on cold, and held onto him as he tried to get a grasp on himself.  He gasped, taking in a deep, rushed breath, and the palm of Lily’s hand slapped him hard on the cheek as she screamed his name.  That time he heard her. She was as fearless as ever around him, and Remus loved her for that.  He always had. 

“Oh my god,” he whispered.  He was shivering from the icy water even under his layers and pads, and when he reached out to Lily her skin was just as cold.  “God, Lily.  I’m so sorry. I just—I don’t know.  Did you see him though? What he did?  He just—“

“What the hell? Remus? Lily?  What the hell is going on?”  James said.  Remus had no idea how long he’d been there, but judging by the way he grabbed Lily and pulled her away from the spray of the shower it couldn’t have been very long.  “You’re freezing!  What are you even doing here?”

Remus didn’t even bother trying to answer for himself.  He slid down the shower wall and let Lily do the talking for him.  He could hear his father demanding to be let into the locker-room, and he knew whatever John Lupin had to say to him would be far worse than anything James could come up with.  He also knew there was no way to escape him.

“I’m in here!”  Remus called out.  James looked at him like he’d lost his mind, but Remus didn’t care.  He hadn’t said it for James’ benefit.

John Lupin pushed open the door to the showers with a bang, his eyes instantly finding his son.  Remus could sense his anger without looking up at him.  It radiated off of him like heat off the blacktop in the dead of summer.

“We’ll leave you two to it then,” Lily said and if James protested he didn’t do it out loud.  The door closed behind them, and Remus was left alone with his father for the first time in over a year.

Surprisingly, John didn’t instantly start yelling.  He didn’t even speak.  Instead he slowly approached Remus with his hands raised, almost as if he was scared of his own son, and then reached up to turn off the water.  A moment later a towel was tossed Remus’ way and Remus reluctantly accepted it.

“Look, I didn’t mean for that to happen.  I never mean for anything to happen,” Remus began, but his father shook his head.

“Was that him?” John asked, and Remus just looked at him in confusion.

“Was that him who?”

“The werewolf,” John said, the word werewolf leaving his lips like a swear.  “I knew there was one, I just don’t have your ability to sense them.  Was that him?  There’s no way you would have attacked a human that way.  We might not be the closest of families, but I know my son.”

“You knew there was a wolf on the team? And you didn’t say anything?”  Remus said in disbelief, the real reasoning behind his father’s sudden interest in hockey finally dawning on him. “That’s the only reason you wanted to come to the game isn’t it.  You wanted something like this to happen.  You wanted me to make a fool of myself in front of all of my friends just so you could have proof for your stupid witch-hunt.”

John took a step back and only then did Remus notice the wolf was showing its teeth again, but ironically he didn’t really care at this point.

“What’d he do? Did he bite someone?  Did he threaten anyone?  Or is him existing just enough for you and your buddies to want his blood?”

“You know it’s not like that, Remus.  Not all of them are like you.  None of them are like you.  That kid is bad news.  You saw what he did to your friend—“

“Don’t.  Just don’t.  I don’t care anymore, Dad,” Remus snapped.  He’d already had one of the worst nights of his life.  He didn’t need to add this on top of everything else.  Of course he knew that his dad had slowly been tracking down other wolves across the Northwest ever since his mom died, but he’d never before risked his own son for the sake of his hunt.  “Just go away, please?”

When John showed no sign of moving, Remus bared his teeth and screamed, “NOW!”

The door slammed shut in his wake, but Remus didn’t flinch.  And once he was alone, Remus took in a deep breath and punched the shower wall.  Blood welled up on his knuckles and dripped down the wall.  Remus stared at them until they healed back up then slowly began stripping himself of his soaked uniform and pads.  Out on the ice he could hear the game start back, knew James was now playing Sirius’ role and that Cresswell had been put in the net.

When Sirius found him, Remus was sitting on the bench outside the showers, still wearing his damp compression garments and tall socks.  Sirius’ head was now bandaged and he’d managed to change out of his gear and back into his street clothes.  Remus sighed and scooted over, giving him room to sit next to him.

“You okay?”  Sirius asked after a moment. 

Remus had no idea what Sirius had seen, how much he could write off as a side effect of a concussion.  He just nodded.

“I’m sorry the officials kicked you out of the game,” Sirius said.  Remus hadn’t even known he’d been officially kicked out, but he supposed it made sense. He’d attacked another player, then stormed off even while the referee was yelling at him.  When Remus still didn’t speak, Sirius continued.  “It’s okay, you know.  That you were kicked out.  I mean, you’re probably suspended for a few games too, but it happens sometimes.  I’m not mad at you.”

“No?”

“No,” Sirius said softly, turning sideways on the bench so he was facing Remus.  His hand reached out to rest on Remus’ shoulder.  “Not at all.  You did that for me, didn’t you?  I saw the whole fight, Remus.  You went after that guy because he hurt me.  How could I be mad about that?”

If he had seen the whole fight, how had he not noticed what had happened?  And if he didn’t notice, maybe no one else had either.  Remus let out a deep breath in relief and blinked a few times before turning to face Sirius.  For a moment he just studied his face, trying to detect any sign of fear or surprise that might indicate he knew more than he was letting on to, but there was nothing written on his face besides deep concern mingled with something else Remus couldn’t quite name.

“And you, are you okay?” he finally said, reaching out to gently tap a finger to the bandage on Sirius’ head.

Sirius laughed and nodded.

“Just a mild concussion.  Nothing to worry about,” he said, his eyes darkening ever so slightly.

Remus swallowed.

“How long will you be off the i—“

But he never finished his sentence, because Sirius suddenly leaned forward and pressed their lips together.  Remus didn’t even hesitate.  He wrapped his arms around Sirius and kissed back with everything he had.

 

 

The night after the ‘game from hell,’ as Remus began to think of it, Sirius spent the night in his room.  And between random impromptu make out sessions and Remus having to wake Sirius up every two hours, neither of them got very much sleep.  They did however talk about just about every single topic imaginable, including werewolves to some extent.

“I hate this movie,” Remus muttered, more to himself than to Sirius.  It had been Sirius’ idea to watch a movie, so obviously Remus had to consent and let him flip through the channels on the TV until something he deemed worth watching was found.  However, when Sirius finally gave up his search upon finding _Werewolf of Woodstock_ , Remus wasn’t quite amused.

“Why?  This shit is hilarious,” Sirius said without so much as blinking.  He shoved another handful of chips in his mouth, talking around his fingers as he nibbled the salt off of them one grain at a time.  “It’s a pissed off farmer who hates hippies that gets struck by lightning and turns into a werewolf monster thing, and then the police think it’s all the ‘filthy hippies’ doing the killing and its fucking Woodstock, so obviously that just makes it even more hilarious.  You have to appreciate how bad this movie is, Remy.  It’s completely illogical.  Like how the hell could lightning turn someone into a werewolf? Nothing about it makes a bit of sense.  Whoever wrote this had to be trippin’ on acid or something.  You know they must have.”

Remus frowned.  On the screen a man was ranting about how electrical stimulation caused rat’s to grow extra hair, which he assumed had something to do with the writers trying to explain why lightning had anything to do with lycanthropy, but it was hard to tell.  Sirius was right, nothing about the movie made a bit of sense.

“I don’t know, I just—.  I’d expect the wolf to be different,” Remus finally said.  The entire situation was making him uncomfortable.

“What? Less like bigfoot and more like a wolf wolf?”

“A wolf wolf, Sirius?”

Sirius laughed.

“Well you know, an actual animal wolf, and not some type of weird guy in a Halloween mask?”  Sirius thoughtfully looked at the TV a moment before shrugging.  “I don’t know, I kinda think the moveable jaw looks kinda cool.”

Remus gave up after that.  There was no point in trying to reason with the stupidity that was Sirius Black’s brain, especially not the stupidity that was Sirius Black’s brain with a concussion.  Even if Remus knew nothing about werewolves, he doubted he would have found the movie worthy of his time.  But thankfully, even Sirius grew bored of it after a while and switched to some other movie about a family being terrorized by lizards, birds, and even a butterfly.  It was just as poorly made as the werewolf movie, but at least it was far less awkward for Remus than watching a werewolf movie with his new boyfriend who didn’t know he was a werewolf.

They fell back to sleep again sometime after that, and when Remus woke, Sirius was snoring in his ear.  Leave it to Sirius to find a way to be just as loud in sleep as he was awake.

 

 

It took over two weeks for Sirius to be cleared for contact and allowed back on the ice.  While Sirius wasn’t the only decent offensive player the Gryphs had, he was close to it, and the rest of the team crumbled without him.

The locker-room dynamics had also changed.  Everyone was upset about their sudden decline.  Everyone was worried about whether or not they were still going to make the cut.  No one spoke very much, and when they did the pre-playoff tension between everyone lead to numerous heated arguments and false accusations.

“What’s happening out there is inexcusable,” Sirius said, addressing the whole team after what felt like one of the worst practices Remus had ever seen.  “We have forwards missing empty net shots.  We have defensemen acting like they’re too good to play the point and want to be goal scorers.  We even have a few players who obviously need to come to optional skate more because they’re winded just skating up and down the ice a few times.  We have to be better than this.  Everyone in here knows how to play.  Everyone here can play.  But it seems like no one remembers that.  Do you want a chance at winning the Championship Cup or not?”

All around, the players looked like they were already defeated.  The only indicator that anyone was even listening to what Sirius was saying, was that silence had passed over the room the moment he started talking.  Remus looked down at his skates, noticed how the skate guards were starting to come apart.

Eventually it was Snape who commented first.

“Is no one going to comment on the fact that we were doing great until the moment Lupin here decided to go and get himself suspended for several games?”

“What happened that night was not Remus’ fault,” James suddenly said, speaking up even before Sirius could.

“Oh really,” Snape shot back.  “So are you saying that our goalie having a mental breakdown that ended with him sobbing in the showers wasn’t anyone’s fault, or are you saying that we’re just not supposed to say it’s his fault because he’s currently Captain’s agfay?”

Remus’ head shot up, his eyes wide and mouth agape, at the same exactly moment Sirius and James both jumped to their feet.  To most of the people in the room, James probably appeared the angrier of the two.  He clenched and unclenched his fists at his side and if not for the fact that Aubrey, one of the team’s third line defensemen, was holding him back, James would have probably tackled Snape.  Sirius, on the other hand, appeared calm on the outside except for the fire in his eyes, the heavy set of his jaw, and the way his voice seemed to reach new volumes when he spoke.

“Severus Snape. A word. Now.”

In the end, no one, not even Snape was brave enough to stand up to the captain when he was angry, and the room once again fell into silence as Snape slowly followed Sirius into the coach’s office.

Once the door was shut behind them, several people began talking all at once, and a couple others took that as their sign practice was officially dismissed for the day and left.  James meet Remus’ eyes briefly from across the room and offered a slight half smile that was probably meant to be reassuring or sympathetic but only managed to invoke even more uncertainty.

No one bothered to say anything to Remus except for a few pinched goodbyes, but even if they had attempted to talk to him, Remus wouldn’t have heard them.  He was more focused on trying to hear everything being said behind the closed door.  For one reason or another, Coach had at one point in time decided to attempt to sound proof his office, and even though he had succeeded to the hearing capabilities of humans, it wasn’t quite up to werewolf standards.  Granted, the rubber lining the walls and door did make it a bit more difficult, and without letting the wolf out, Remus was only able to catch the bits and pieces said the loudest.

Apparently Snape had overheard some of what occurred after the game from hell, not to mention bits and pieces of other conversations that until now Remus had assumed were innocent.   He knew just enough to connect the pieces and jump to his own conclusions – conclusions about why Remus hadn’t gotten in trouble with Sirius the night he was kicked out of the game, conclusions as to why Sirius didn’t seem to be nearly as mad at Remus for their lost games as he was at the rest of their defense.

“Can you hear anything they’re saying?” James asked, his hand landing firmly on Remus’ shoulder as he sat next to him on the now otherwise empty bench. 

Remus jumped at the touch.  He had no idea how long James had been sitting there, had no recollection of anything before that moment.

“The door’s kinda far away, James,” he said through semi-clenched teeth. 

“Well yeah, but I just thought that, maybe—“ He looked away, rubbed the palm of one hand over his jaw. “Never mind.  I just wonder what they’re saying is all.”

Remus sighed.  He had given up trying to understand the oddities of James’ behavior long ago.

“Me too.”

A few minutes later, the last couple of players lingering the locker-room had left.  James gave up sitting still and began pacing back and forth.  Even Remus gave up trying to listen and focused his attention on watching the clock slowly tick away the seconds.

“What do you think they’re talking about now?”  James asked a bit later, his ear pressed against the door for a moment before returning to sit next to Remus.

“I don’t know.  The weather?”  Remus snapped.  “Maybe they’re discussing methods to resurrect Ronnie Van Zant from the grave or memorizing Shakespearean sonnets.”

“Ronnie Van Zant?”

“Yeah, you know, the singer of—“

Remus closed his mouth suddenly when he heard Sirius scream at Snape to get lost, and turned to look at the door the moment it flew open and Snape stormed out.  For a split second, Remus contemplated baring his teeth at him and seeing if it would make him run away any faster.

“Remy, I know you’re still out there,” Sirius called out the office door.  “You too James, come on.”

James practically ran into the office, but Remus didn’t feel quite so enthusiastic about it.  Instead he lingered in the doorway, smiled wearily at Sirius.  He’d never seen Sirius look so defeated and tired.  He sat in the coach’s chair, slouched over the desk with his head propped up on his elbow and fingers pressed to his temples.  Strands of his hair had fallen out of the ponytail he’d pulled it back into before practice. Even though Remus hadn’t been the one Sirius had just spent the past half an hour reprimanding, he still felt like he should be the one apologizing.

“Did you tell that slimy bastard to go to hell?”  James asked a bit too eagerly.  “I would have told him to go to hell then kicked him off the team after threatening to lock him in a prison cell with Hitler for all of eternity.”

“He probably would have liked that though,” Remus muttered.

Sirius laughed and the tension in the room finally broke.  Neither of them had to ask to know Sirius had more than won the argument.

 

 

Life slowly began to return to normal for the three of them, well four of them if they counted Lily who while always around, had seemed to fade a bit to the peripheral.

Then the Gryphs won their game against the Waterloo Warriers, which also won them the title of division championships.  Everyone was ecstatic about making it into the CIAU semi-finals and their chance at actually winning the Championship Cup.  And since the game against the Dalhousie Tigers, which if won would move them forward to the final round, was scheduled to start at noon, Remus wasn’t even worried about the fact that the game fell on the day of the full moon.

The morning of the game, Remus could hear people everywhere talking about their chances of winning the Cup.  The anatomy and physiology class the three shared was even canceled, leaving the morning completely free for them to do nothing besides prepare for the match.  James bought half the team breakfast at the local diner, Sirius went around passing out flags with the Guelph Gryphon’s crest printed in bold colors to everyone he saw, and Remus even had a few people ask him for his autograph, which was extremely odd to say the least.

Their coach, Sirius, and James all gave motivational speeches before the game, and as the team walked out of the tunnel and took the ice, the crowd cheered louder than Remus had ever heard.  His grin didn’t fade until 14 minutes into the first period, when one of the Tigers’ forwards caught him off guard on a deke and sent the puck flying to the back of the net through his six hole.  While the goal scorer was engaged in a five man pile up hug from his teammates, Sirius met Remus’ eyes across the ice and just shrugged, letting Remus know the best he could that he couldn’t always save them all.

Still, Remus vowed to himself that he wouldn’t let another puck past him again, and when the buzzer sounded the end of the third, the Gryphs had won 2-1.

Sirius was the first one to Remus, wrapping him into a hug so tight they both lost their balance and tumbled backward into the net.  Once Remus made it back to his feet he was surprised to see the rest of the team waiting to celebrate with him as well.  James grinned as he pulled off Remus’ goalie mask, ruffled his hair with a gloved hand.  Cresswell skated out to him from the bench, enveloped him in a brief hug made awkward by the two sets of goalie pads between them, and Aubrey playfully swatted at Remus’s skates with the end of his stick as he skated by.  Even Snape was smiling, and nodded at Remus from where he stood a few feet away, one arm wrapped around the shoulders of one of their fellow teammates, both so happy they could barely stay on their skates.

The Gryphs were playing for the Championship Cup.

It was a wonderful feeling that carried through all the way into the locker-room, followed them into their post-game cool down exercises, and was still just as present three hours later at the celebratory after party. 

There had to be everyone Remus had ever even seen in passing at the party.  Drinks were passed around left and right, someone had put on a Rush album Remus hadn’t even heard before, and every time he turned around someone else was congratulating him or slapping him on the back.  Every now and then someone would exclaim, “WE’RE GOING TO THE CIAU FINALS!!”  And every time everyone in the entire place would start screaming all over again.

Remus was in the kitchen with Sirius leaning heavily against his side, listening to someone he’d never even met before describing how awesome it had been when Avery had scored the game winning goal almost completely by accident.  It had been a pretty humorous turn of events, when a third line defenseman had used a high stick to knock a flying puck out of the air only to send it on a direct path to Avery’s stick and into the net before Avery – or anyone else for that matter – even knew what was going on.  It had been Avery’s first goal ever, and from looking at his more than horrible stats over the two years he’d been on the team, probably his last.  He laughed just thinking back on the moment, and his laughter sent Sirius off as well.

“Remus?  What are you doing here?”  Lily’s voice broke through the volume of the crowd and her hand gripped Remus’ arm tight enough for her nails to leave indentions in his skin.

“What are you—“ 

“It’s almost seven o’clock,” Lily continued, her eyes narrowed and her words taunt yet purposeful.  “You’re going to miss your fishing trip.”

It took Remus a few more minutes before comprehension dawned on him.  It was seven o’clock on the night of the full moon, and the moon was scheduled to rise in less than an hour.  Even if he left right now, Belwood Lake was a little over a thirty minute drive from the university, and the party was at least a fifteen minute drive from there.  If he left right now, he might reach the conservation area in time, might, but there was no way he would be able to make it out to the island.  There was no way he was going to make it in time.

Everyone was staring at him with looks ranging from pure confusion to complete incomprehension, and Remus froze, not even bothering to pull away from Lily’s grasp on him.  Behind Lily, James looked just as worried, if not more so, than Remus felt.

“Lil’,” James said, so low that the only people in the room who could have possibly heard him besides Remus was Lily.  “My parents are out of town, the house should be far enough away from the road that it could work—“ He glanced up at Remus and their eyes locked a moment.  Remus felt like he might faint or throw up, or both. “Go.”

Lily pulled hard on Remus’ arm and James pulled Sirius back, but Remus felt like he couldn’t move, like his body had completely forgotten how to function.

“Remus, go with Lily,” James repeated.  “Go!”

Remus didn’t have to be told again.  With one last look back at Sirius, the words ‘I’m sorry,’ forming on his lips, Remus allowed Lily to guide him out of the room to James’ Plymouth Cricket.  Lily threw the car into gear before Remus had even managed to shut his door all the way, and was already pulling out of the yard and onto the road when Sirius banged his fist against the hood, stepping out in front of the car and blocking her path.

“Wait!” he said, his hair wild and cheeks slightly flushed from sprinting across the yard after them.  “I’m going with you.”

“No!”  Remus said in protest, looking back and forth from Lily to Sirius.  Sirius most definitely could not go with them. 

But before Remus could voice his thoughts on the matter, the rear passenger-side door was being pulled open.  James slid into the seat, followed closely behind Sirius.

“Actually, we’re both going with you,” James exclaimed, his firm voice doing very little to match his downright terrified appearance.  “This is probably the worst decision ever made, but we’re both going with you.  You’ll need us.  If—if something goes, well, wrong.”

“How do you even know?”

“What the fuck is even going on?”

Remus and Sirius both exclaimed at the same time.

“I’ll explain everything later,” Lilly screamed.  “Now can everyone please get in the goddamn car?  This is sort of a time sensitive matter.”

“Just drive already!”  Remus said, slamming his head into the back of his seat and clenching his fists tightly at his sides.  James was right.  This was the worst decision anyone had ever made in the history of worst decisions.  The number of things that could go wrong outweighed the things that could go right nine to one.

Gravel sprayed out from under the wheels of the car as Lily finally floored it and pulled onto the road, and Remus struggled to fasten his seatbelt before being thrown out of his seat.

“I’ve known for a while now,” James said once everything seemed semi stable inside the vehicle. “Like, since ages ago.”

“You told him?”  Remus said, turning to Lily with a pleading look.  “You promised you wouldn’t tell!”

“I promised not to tell Sirius!  And if you’d use your mind and look around, Sirius still doesn’t know,” Lily said, not even looking up from the road as she sped around a semi-trailer truck on a double line.  “So technically I kept my promise.  And if you’d also think a moment, you’d realize that James obviously doesn’t care you’re a werewolf with a self-esteem problem the size of North America.  When are you going to learn that not everyone is as big of an asshole as your fucking father?”

“Remus is a werewolf?”  Sirius said with obvious skepticism.  “Remus isn’t a—“

“Pretty sure Lily would know better than you, Siri,” James said with such lightheartedness that the whole thing sounded like another one of Sirius’ B-rated movies or a really bad dream.  “Your boyfriend is a werewolf.  A werewolf, mind you, that forgot all about the fact that it was a full moon tonight. So that’s what we’re doing.  We’re driving him to my parents’ house.  Then we’re going to lock him up in the garage, and hope he isn’t strong enough to break down the door or destroy the entire house or himself in the process of trying. It all makes sense when you think about it.”

Remus watched the color drain out of Sirius’ face in the rearview mirror as he transitioned from disbelief to the beginning stages of shock.

“I’m dating a werewolf?” Sirius said, his eyes going as wide as the full moon about to rise.

“Yup, shocking isn’t it?” James said as he reached across the seat and patted his friend on the leg.  “You should have seen the look on my face when Lily told me.”

Remus groaned.

“Lily,” he said.  “Just saying, I’m pretty sure that counts as telling him.”

“A werewolf,” he heard Sirius repeat, this time to himself.

Lily pulled into the drive at James’ parents’ place, killed the engine, and Remus ran out of time to spend worrying about whether or not Sirius was really grasping the severity of the situation or not.  He barely even had time to register that by the time this was all over he probably wasn’t going to even have a boyfriend, let alone a friend, left, and that was even if they all managed to survive through the night.  He could already feel the wolf rising up inside of him as they climbed out of the car, could feel his eyes darkening, his teeth and nails elongating.  He spared one last look back at Sirius before James shoved inside the garage and slammed the door shut behind him.

It was pitch black in the garage and as Remus kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt over his head, the air felt bitterly cold against his skin.  He vaguely wondered what was in the garage and hoped there was nothing too valuable for him to destroy, before the moon topped the horizon and he felt himself slip away as the wolf took over.

 

 

Hearing was always the first thing to return to Remus.  Long before he was even conscious enough to open his eyes, Remus could hear, muttered syllables, fragmented words, bits and pieces of broken conversation.  Usually the words, if there were words at all, were far off, nothing more than a distant echo of fishermen miles off starting their day.  Their garbled speech would stir him from his nightmares, bring him back to life, and warn him that with the rising of the sun came the chances of being caught.  But instead of the voices of strangers, Remus found himself listening to the voices of his friends.

“—half past six, but—“

“—want pancakes—“

“—long now. He’s usually—“

Remus groaned, struggled to force his eyes open, to make sense of what was around him.  Only opening his eyes didn’t help.  There was only grey as far as he could see.  Grey floor.  Grey walls.  Grey ceilings. There was even a grey blanket and a grey door.  He blinked hard, then tried again.  And this time, the grey slowly came to life with color as he once again began to see things though his own eyes.  He cringed when he realized most of what had been grey was actually smeared with blood, but smell told him it was only his own.

Slowly, he was able to pull himself into a sitting position.  The blanket was soft and clean, the only thing in the entire room not somewhat broken or soiled, and he pulled it around him.  It smelled like a mixture of plastic packaging and Sirius.  Remus tried to picture Sirius sneaking into the room after the wolf had passed out and carefully draping a blanket over his bruised and naked body, but no matter how hard he tried it wasn’t something he could imagine.

“Sirius, do you think Remus will be able to wear these?”

“Ability and want are two very different things.”

“No, Lil’.  Those are my favorite jammies.  Do we really have to?”

Remus smiled at the sounds of his friend’s voices only to have the smile die on his lips a moment later when he realized what all of this meant.  They all knew.  Not just Lily, not even just James.  Sirius knew.  Remus couldn’t even begin to comprehend how those two words could coincide with the undeniable fact that Sirius was still there.

Despite how weak he was, Remus forced himself to push himself to his feet and search for his own clothing.  He found his pants where he’d left them, surprisingly untouched.  Next his shoes, which were slightly chewed up but still wearable.  They’d been worse.  His shirt, however, was a lost cause, and he sighed as he left it where he found it and wrapped the blanket back around his shoulders.

When he reached for the doorknob, he was surprised to find it unlocked.

James was the first person Remus saw when he opened the door, and his friend’s smile was tired yet welcoming.  Lily was sitting next to James on the concrete of the drive to the house, her back to the outside of the metal garage door.  Her eyes lit up and she jumped to her feet. 

But Sirius, Sirius he felt before he saw.  Arms wrapped around him tighter than he’d ever been held as Sirius buried his face in the crook of Remus’ neck.  Remus jumped at the sudden contact, the blanket slipping from his grasp as he leaned against the doorframe to keep from falling over.  It took him a moment to return the hug.  He was too shocked to register he was supposed to.  It took him even longer to realize that Sirius was shaking.

Lily laughed, then pulled James aside, giving Remus and Sirius a moment to themselves.

“Sirius?”  Remus asked when he’d recovered from his surprise enough to find his voice.

He brought a hand up to the back of Sirius’ head, filled his fingers with a handful of dark hair.  Sirius took in shaky breath and nodded against Remus’ skin. It was a while before they finally pulled away and when they did Sirius quickly wiped his face on the back of his hand, gathered his hair back into customary ponytail, all the while looking away from Remus as if embarrassed.

“I spent the whole night both in shock,” Sirius said, his voice thick and eyes meaningful. “In shock because my lover’s a werewolf, and freaking out—freaking out because he was hurting and there was not a damn thing I could do about it.”

Remus opened his mouth to speak, but Sirius pressed his palm over his lips and shook his head.

“Let me finish. I’ve been rehearsing this speech in my head the greater part of the morning. Please let me finish.”—Sirius moved his hand and waited to be sure Remus was going to be quiet before he continued.—“Lily told me that you didn’t tell me because you didn’t tell anyone, and that you didn’t tell anyone because your father is a fucking asshole.  And I get that.  We’re not even going to get started on my father, but believe me I’m sure he’s right up there with yours for nomination for worst father of the year or whatever.  But just because one person you know is an ignorant jackass, doesn’t give you the right to assume everyone else around you is too.”

Sirius took a step backwards, shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket, and Remus almost thought he was finished.  Almost.

“Do you have any idea how horrible it is to sit out here and listen to you scream and tear yourself to pieces?  Do you have any idea how much it hurts to know that you didn’t think I’d give enough of a damn to still care about you if you told me the truth?”—Sirius laughed.—“Better yet, how do you not know me well enough by now to know that I fucking love werewolves!  Well, not all werewolves.  You’re actually the only werewolf that I’ve ever met, that I know of, but beside the point, Remus. How do you not know that by now?  I fucking care about you, Remy.  Hell, I even love you.  Am I a little freaked out and a lot shocked to find out I’ve been sleeping with a werewolf the past month or so? You betcha I am.  But does that automatically negate everything I feel for you? No.  Not one fucking—“

This time it was Remus that cut Sirius off with a kiss, although he had to admit it wasn’t done quite as clever or as skillful as Sirius had done it to him that night in the locker-room.  And not even a second or so after the kiss started, Sirius laughed and pulled away from him, wiping his mouth on Remus’ blanket and gagging.

“I love you, too, Remy, but damn,” he said.  “Wolf breath is just about a bitch.”

When James returned a minute or so later to make sure they hadn’t killed one another, Remus and Sirius were leaning against the garage door clinging to each other and laughing so hard they could barely breathe.

 

 

In the end, the Guelph Gryphons didn’t win the Championship Cup, the Alberta Golden Bears did – 1-0 in an overtime shootout.  Then again, the Golden Bears weren’t the only team with a forward with higher stats than Sirius Black for nothing.  A fact that Sirius still claims isn’t possible.

But after the arena had cleared and it was just Remus and Sirius left in the locker-room, with the warm water from their shared shower head running over them, the Championship Cup didn’t really matter to Remus after all.  Because in the end, he got exactly what he wanted.  They both did.

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for a fanfiction contest held by my university's Harry Potter Club. The entire fic was written over the course of 72 hours while simultaneously juggling the workload of both nursing school and work, so I apologize for any errors that might have made it into the final cut. It was inspired by Wolves on Ice by Calliotrope (a hockey RPF about werewolves playing hockey), my love of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and various elements from both Teen Wolf and Being Human (BBC).
> 
> The Guelph Gryphons are an actual university ice hockey team from Guelph, Ontario, Canada -- which is just outside of Toronto. They weren't actually the runners up for the Championship Cup in 1979 (the Dalhousie Tigers were), but they were in 1976! I have no idea who was actually in which university hockey division in 1979, but all teams mentioned were real teams playing for the Championship Cup in 1979. Many of them are teams that still exist to this day.
> 
> I also have no idea whether or not there is an island inside of Belwood Lake, but both movies mentioned are, unfortunately, very much real. The first is Werewolf of Woodstock (1975). The second, about random animals and a butterfly attacking a family, is The Frogs (1972). I honestly don't recommend either movie unless you are just extremely bored and have nothing better to do.
> 
> Hopefully everyone enjoyed reading this just as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Much Love,  
> ~Shin


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